Trains Then and Now

Today we take railroads and rail traffic for granted, at least, where I live we do. Dozens of trains pass through on the north side of our little town each day and no one notices, just part of life. But that was not always the case. When trains first passed through towns and cities much of the community would turn out to cheer and watch the powerful locomotives pulling a handful of cars.  When passenger cars were involved and the train stopped, even if but for a few minutes, it was the best entertainment in town. Funny how times change.

Modern day Coal Train rolling toward the mines to refill

When I was a kid growing up in 1950s Nebraska we still, on occasion, went down to watch the Rock Island Rocket, come in and leave. It was quite a site. The rocket would reach speeds of 70 or so miles per hour, making its Kansas City to Omaha trip in a few hours and that included several stops.

But long before our family, and many others watched and enjoined the trains, someone had to build the first track and what a job it was. 2,400 ties were needed every mile, and when they got out here our supplies of cottonwood, scrub cedar and pine were not good enough for the substantial ties needed. Most of the first ties laid through the west were Pennsylvania Oak. Eventually, enough good hard pine was found in the foothills and mountains to open several tie camps in Wyoming and the west.

At last the foothills and mountains provided Tie timber

Water and food were also a problem to supply as the tracks were built. Meat hunters like Buffalo Bill and others are well documented in history, but there is more to this story also. Building the railroad through an area where the native people did not want it was dangerous. Forts D.A. Russell, Sanders, and Fred Steel were built to house soldiers whose primary purpose would be to protect the workers and the process of building the railroad. In places, half the workers worked, and the other half stood guard duty, a tough build indeed. But they got it done, and today we hardly notice. 

The great herds were in decline but still supplied much of the
 meat for the crews building the railroad west

Cheyenne - The RR Town

On the fourth of July in 1867, General Grenville Dodge set the spot for Wyoming’s first railroad terminal. Crow Creek was the spot. He named this spot Cheyenne after the Indian tribe in the area. It didn’t take long for a city to grow from the terminal.

Robert Strahorn, while preparing his Handbook, asked one of the first settlers of the city if he could point out the first house erected in Cheyenne. “The old settlers replied, “ well, one fine day, early in July, 1867, four or five hundred of us pitched our tents here, where there wasn’t a sign of civilization, and about half of us woke up at daylight the next morning to find that the other half were living in board shanties.” **

**From Velma Linford’s, Wyoming Frontier State.

1890 Train

Cheyenne, at the time, was constantly referred to as a creation of the Union Pacific Railroad. Within weeks a city blossomed. By the end of summer, more than 300 businesses were open in Cheyenne. By November when the first rails made it to town, 4,000 people were living there. A year later the population dropped to 1,500 but the town remained and grew, reaching a population 4,500 people by the early 1880s.

Fifty-nine railroads were incorporated in Wyoming between 1869 and 1900. Seems like we should have tracks running all over the state. Many of these railroads were only on paper and never able to raise the money to build any miles of track. But some track was getting built, a reported 290 miles in the first few years of twentieth century.

Train heading west